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I am not a wealthy man, but I know how they live.
My grandfather Eddie was the son of Polish immigrants; he met my grandmother Dottie at the Electrolux factory in Stamford, Connecticut, where they worked, and eventually they settled in Greenwich. My father, Walter, worked for the town, trimming trees and maintaining its parks; my mother, Margie, stayed at home, raising four boys almost entirely herself. While most of the other kids at school spoke of private planes and sleep-away camps, I enjoyed my summers in the garden helping my grandfather plant flowers, or in the kitchen with my mother making pierogi. We were a close-knit family, living under one roof, holding onto our Polish traditions.
In high school, I worked at a catering company washing dishes, scrubbing floors and taking out the trash. When the holidays came and we were shortstaffed in the kitchen, I once arranged a crudité of vegetables on a grapevine sleigh with an eggplant sliced lengthwise and hollowed out for dip. It really wasn’t any different from the flower arrangements I’d help my grandfather make growing up. Soon, I started working parties at grand estates, where I passed mini crab cakes on sterling silver trays and served Beluga caviar on mother of-pearl spoons. As a caterer, I peered into the cabinets of magnificent kitchens, looking for a single pitcher, only to find a hundred. Big pitchers, little pitchers—porcelain, glass and silver. I opened drawers in butler’s pantries with more serving pieces than Buckingham Palace. Long forks with four tines and short forks with two tines. Spoons with round bowls, oval bowls and spoons with teeth. There were toast racks and teapots, samovars and soup tureens, compotes and cake stands. China came with markings and linens with letters. Every piece had a story—a history—whether handed down or happened upon in some faraway place. Of course, I owned none of these things myself and would inherit little of the sort. But in the sublime beauty of coffee served delicately in a Herend Chinese Bouquet demitasse cup, paired with a sterling silver Tiffany Audubon spoon, I glimpsed another kind of life.
Catering parties in Greenwich, I saw how the wealthy entertain. Styling homes for House Beautiful, I saw how they decorate. Oil paintings in living rooms hung splendidly over mantels flanked by cloisonné vases, Staffordshire dogs and Baccarat candlesticks. On bookcases and étagères, collections of blue-and white porcelain punctuated stacks of beautiful books. Bar carts took center stage, stocked with silver cocktail shakers, gilded tumblers, and handblown glass decanters.
Lacquered trays adorned coffee tables with Venetian glass bowls and vases filled with flowers. Boxes came in brass, shagreen, tortoiseshell and alabaster. Obelisks were made of marble, malachite, lapis and agate. Chinoiserie figurines rubbed elbows with African statues. Natural curiosities lent whimsy. Crystal added glamour. Everywhere I looked, captivating combinations of furniture, textiles, art and objects told deeply personal stories of who lived there, where they’d been and what they loved. In every treasure, trinket, knickknack and artifact, there was a life well lived—and I found it at the flea market. Not all of us were born with a silver spoon in our mouths, but we can pretend, can’t we?
